]]>Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:32:40 GMThttp://www.worcesterrefugees.org/wrap-blog/my-student-asks-me-how-i-know-by-jennifer-freedthat north is north. How,when I look at a map of the world, do I decidewhich puzzled shape ishome? And in the picturebook I gave him about pharaohs, howcan pyramids date back four-thousand yearsif all the years we count, each timewe write the date, are two-thousandand fifteen?My student is 27, or 25, or 29—he does not knowfor sure. He does not knowof dinosaurs or Darwin, of Santa or satellites or germsor genes, of how his daughter can look not like him and notlike his wife, but like the returned spiritof his father, killedby army bullets many harvests past, whenfarmers in his village stood accusedof sharing rice with rebel troops.But he knowshow to ride a water buffalo,how to find the best bamboo,how to cut it, carry it, transform itinto walls and floor and roof to lastthree rainy seasons.He knows how to spear a fish,how to shroud the dead.He knows how to speak the language of his people,and the language of the government his people fled,and the language of the refugee campwhere he grew from boyhood into marriage.He knows how to writea littleof each of these, which mattered little, before now,because no one else he knew had ever neededwritten words.And now, in his new American home,he has learned to reada third grade bookin English,and to drive a car,to walk in snow,to use lightbulbs, laptops, house keys.He's learned how to live with a silent tonguein this book-rich landwhose people carry Moses, Medusa, Mars, andthe moon as lightlyas pennies in their pockets.He's learned how to stack parcelsall night for FedEx, and go to classesin the day, and to keepgoing, day after day, knowinghe has entered a life enormously fullof words that pointto holesin the world he thought he knew, holesthrough which he still can hopeto someday slipinto another life, easierthan this.

]]>Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:21:11 GMThttp://www.worcesterrefugees.org/wrap-blog/lessons-by-jennifer-freedIf you were that woman, sittingevery Friday in the public library, one week workingthrough the who and how and whyof simple questions whispering from your tutor’s lips,the next week learning price and pay and sale and saveand How much does it cost?—if you were that woman,then you, too,would ask for repetition of bag and back and bank,of leave and leaf and left and live,and you would struggle to produce the English soundsthat held the meanings you still heldinside your head: the dappled murmuring of leavesoutside your childhood home, the treesfull of sweet yellow fruit you could not name in this new life,the lives you left so you could live,and as you moved your lips in all the unfamiliar waysto make the sounds your tutor made, she would nodand you would smile, but you would neverwrite, for you’d not yet know howto form or read those fast, firm letters you watched pouring from her hand,and so you’d have no way to store what you had learnedexcept in memory and hope,alongside memories of why you’d never needed written wordsin your native world, where your mother had taught you all the skillsof planting and harvesting and weaving and singing that you would ever needfor living in a lush, good place,and alongside memoriesof gunfire echoing beyond the trees,of rebels begging for or stealing food,of soldiers from some distant city standing in yourvillage, barking about loyaltyand able-bodied men,and then the memoriesof jungle paths for five long nights,of sharing food and whispered hope with others who had daredto flee,and the memories of the daughter and the son, bothborn and grown high as your eye in the refugee camp on the border.The English words would nestle in amidstall this,get lost, be found again, and you would have to tryto pull them out but leave the rest behind, tryto let the new sounds tell you not only the hard-edged names and placesof this brick and concrete life, but also how to live in it:how to takea city bus, how topay forlight, and you would sit again, again, againin a mauve chair at a round table in the library, amidst the shelves and worldsof words,struggling with your who and how and why,and you would not allow yourselfto figure how much it had costor how much you still had to pay.You would just smile and thank your tutor,and come backnext Friday.

This poem was originally published in The Worcester Review, Volume 34, 2013.]]>Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:44:17 GMThttp://www.worcesterrefugees.org/wrap-blog/tower-hill-botanic-garden-host-wrap-youth

On 2/25/17, WRAP Youth Group visited Tower Hill Botanic Garden and were given a tour with the help of Alice and Kirsten from Tower Hill. We spent some time sketching plants and flowers and hiking a trail through the gardens. The Youth had so much fun reconnecting with nature!

]]>Mon, 27 Jun 2016 16:07:52 GMThttp://www.worcesterrefugees.org/wrap-blog/congratulations-to-this-years-graduatesThis year marks the end of high school for three of our youth group members. Evelyn is moving on to Rhode Island College as part of the psychology program with the intentions of becoming a counselor. Hey Reh is starting off at Quinsigamond Community College to begin working toward becoming a Registered Nurse. Bu Reh will be attending Westfield State University. We are all excited to see what great things lie ahead for each of our graduates!

Please congratulate each of our graduates and wish them well in this next adventure!!

]]>Sun, 24 Aug 2014 23:31:57 GMThttp://www.worcesterrefugees.org/wrap-blog/youth-artWRAP youth had their first session selling their art work at the Worcester Art Museum Art Market on Saturday 8/16 and it went very well. The WRAP youth will be there Saturday 8/23 and Saturday 9/6, as well. Check out some of the amazing art works below and stop by to visit their stall.